On November 27, officers took manager Minoru Ota, 42, and seven other suspects into custody for violating a law regarding the unauthorized creation of electromagnetic materials for the purpose of sale or ownership after a raid of five shops in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho entertainment area and three warehouses resulted in the seizure of 260,000 illegal discs.

The confiscated materials, the largest haul in the history of the department, are estimated to have a street value of 130 million yen. The value of the DVDs sold by the shops up until the raid is estimated to be 530 million yen.

By law, films available in Japan are required to have genitalia properly censored. Further, changes in legislation made in July of last year regarding the sale of uncensored DVDs copied electromagnetically were enacted to prohibit sales.

All of the suspects have reportedly admitted to the allegations.

According to investigators, the shops did not stock DVDs. Instead, they allowed customers, mostly middle-aged males, to peruse a catalog. Selections were then sent to coin lockers for retrieval.